Semiconductor component manufacturers are constantly striving to increase the performance of their products while decreasing their cost of manufacture. A cost intensive area in the manufacture of semiconductor components is packaging the semiconductor chips that contain the semiconductor devices. As those skilled in the art are aware, discrete semiconductor devices and integrated circuits are fabricated from semiconductor wafers, which are then singulated or diced to produce semiconductor chips. Typically, one or more semiconductor chips is attached to a metal leadframe using a solder die attach material and encapsulated within a mold compound to provide protection from environmental and physical stresses.
After encapsulation of the semiconductor chips and singulation into semiconductor components, the portions of the leadframe that were used for support are discarded. Because most of the metal is used for providing support during the manufacturing steps, a large portion of the metal is discarded. Thus, one way to lower the cost of the semiconductor components is to use a low cost metal for the leadframe. However, the selection of the metal is strongly influenced by its mechanical properties and performance criteria such as the thermal and electrical conductivities of the metal. The metal that offers an acceptable trade-off between mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity is copper. A drawback with copper is that its price continues to increase, which increases the cost of the semiconductor components.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a semiconductor component and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor component that includes a low cost leadframe.